Scholarly activity points: a new tool to evaluate resident scholarly productivity

Abstract Background Scholarly activity is an important aspect of a resident's educational experience; however, evaluation methods have remained underdeveloped despite the increased focus over the last decade. A new scoring system is proposed as a comprehensive evaluation tool. Methods In this scoring system, each scholarly activity (i.e. abstracts, manuscripts, book chapters, research protocols, and research grants) are converted into a numerical score, Scholarly Activity Points (SAPs), which reflects the complexity of the project and the degree of resident's involvement. First, a relative weight value is given to each scholarly category based on its complexity (i.e. 50 points to an abstract, 150 to a manuscript). Then SAPs are calculated with modifiers specific to each scholarly activity (i.e. for an abstract, meeting venue, repeated presentation, authorship, abstract category, and awards). To demonstrate how the system works, a list of scholarly activities by anaesthesia residents graduating from a university programme between 2003 and 2010 was obtained. SAP scores of graduating classes were analysed. Results During the 2003–2010 academic years, a total of 106 residents (the mean of 13 per class, ranging from 9 to 19) graduated from the full 3 yr residency programme. The SAP system allowed statistical comparison among the graduated classes of overall scholarly productivity; significant increases were noted in the average SAPs per resident among the classes of 2009 {154 (204), [mean (sd)]} and 2010 [524 (471)] compared with those by the classes of 2003–2006 [90 (188), 45 (73), 126 (349), 83 (205), respectively]. Conclusions A new scoring system enabled a comprehensive statistical evaluation of residents' scholarly productivity.